I Have America Surrounded

Hello! Here you'll find comments on the afterlife of Timothy Leary - his impact on our culture and his portrayal in the media. Consider this a continuation of the biography 'I Have America Surrounded - The Life of Timothy Leary', by John Higgs with a foreword by Winona Ryder.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Leary Biographer Dies

No, not this one, I'm still around and waltzing. I'm referring to John Bryan, who died on Feb 1st, aged 72.

Bryan published Whatever Happened to Timothy Leary? in 1980, and it remained the only full Leary biography for 26 years. It is not, unfortunately, an easy book to find. Bryan's editor at Harcourt books died just before the book was finished, and his successor had no interest in the manuscript. Bryan published it himself and sold it through the underground and outside Tim's lectures. I personally spent months searching eBay etc trying to find a copy, but with no luck. The copy I now have fell apart during the writing of my book, and exists only as a loose collection of pages.

Bryan was a true counter-culture figure, and the book portrays Leary in the confused, contradictory and often judgmental light in which he was perceived by the American counter culture in the late seventies - people who loved Tim in 1967 but who were increasingly uncomfortable with the directions he took during the seventies. I've been told Tim hated it, and to my mind a number of sections in his 1983 autobiography seem written to deliberately correct or contradict it (which is not to imply that Flashbacks is the more accurate book!) But it's a very important book precisely because it is a genuine report back from those times. Bryan interviewed many people who are no longer around and he reproduced their comments at length, and the book really shines when he gives first hand accounts of events at which he was present (the press conference of People Against Leary's Lies springs to mind here.)

There is much in the book that would have been lost in time if Bryan had not recorded it. It's also a fun read, rich in period language and playfully written. Here's hoping that whoever owns the rights to it makes it available again - even if only through a print-on-demand press, such as Lulu.com.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Comet Envy

As I mentioned in the book, when Leary died the greatest comet in twenty years appeared in the sky. This was known as the "great comet of 1996", or C/1996 B2 Hyakutake to it's friends. This was a nice touch on the part of the heavens, considering Leary's obsession with the comet Kahoutek whilst in jail.

Well, the comet that was in the sky when Robert Anton Wilson died last month puts Leary's comet to shame. It went by the name of C/2007 P1 McNaught, the brightest comet for over forty years, and was soon given the name of - yes - "the great comet of 2007" by Space.com.

Online course in Tim Leary

One of the benifits of writing the book was discovering that time spent getting your head around Tim Leary is a really useful thing to do on many levels - it's something I'd recommend to anyone. Well, an online course in exactly that is starting on Feb 26th, over at RAW's Maybe Logic Academy, in the capable hands of R.U. Sirius. Look, it just sounds good on many levels.

About Me

Author of 'The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band who Burned A Million Pounds' and 'I Have America Surrounded: The Life of Timothy Leary'. Also writes fiction (as JMR Higgs) including The Brandy of the Damned and The First Church on the Moon.